


And in Health

by ValmureEld



Series: I Tried Not to Get Into the Witcher and Look Where That Got Me [20]
Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types, Wiedźmin | The Witcher Series - Andrzej Sapkowski
Genre: Cuddling, Drabble, F/M, Fluff, Heartbeats, Introspection, Literal Sleeping Together, Peaceful, Romance, Romantic Fluff, Self-Indulgent, gratitude, let them be happy, look she's just so happy he's alive and healthy, sleeping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-23
Updated: 2018-03-23
Packaged: 2019-04-06 21:32:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14066001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ValmureEld/pseuds/ValmureEld
Summary: Yennefer's seen Geralt through years and years and years of hardship and sickness. In Toussaint, finally, she can see on him that there's more.Also known as, Yennefer thinks Geralt is an actual, walking work of art and she'd be right.





	And in Health

**Author's Note:**

> I felt like writing Yen/Geralt and so this at 5am. 
> 
> Rolling in self indulgent hyper description that I won't apologize for.

He’s asleep and she isn’t, and she likes it that way.

Long hunts, grievous injuries, toxic brews, so many things have kept him unconscious in her presence through their relationship. This time, it’s a long day of roughhousing with Ciri and his brothers and a good meal after. He’s simply tired out, and the image is one Yennefer takes in with a quiet feeling of pride.

She sits in the candlelight at his side in their bed ( _their bed_ ) and just, watches him sleep. Watches the gentle movement of his body as he rests. Others may not see the difference. He probably doesn’t, but she does. She sees every detail, and she is grateful to her soul for each one.

She reaches her fingers to card them through his hair, the silken, pale strands falling through her fingers. It is clean and soft with oil, and he’s started to have a smell of his own besides hard nights and leather. She bends close to kiss the side of his neck and buries her nose in his hair after, laying her cheek against it.

_Before, it had been coarser. Dull, even, sometimes, though she was certain she was the only one that noticed. Even after a good bath he never was able to get all the dust and weariness out of it, and sometimes it would get tangled with blood and chips of bone for weeks. It only ever smelled of sweat and gore. And fire._

She brushes his jaw affectionately and strokes his throat with the barest touch, feeling him twitch without waking beneath her. His skin, aside from the scars he will bear forever, is smooth and surprisingly soft. It has a color to it that he never had before--part the touch of the Toussaint sun and part the result of real oils and baths.

_Before, the only color he ever got was the harshness of cold wind, the black and purple and ugly green of fading bruises, the grey of infected veins, and the smear of blood where blood should never be._

She nestles closer to him, lying comfortably against his side as she smoothes her thumb along his collarbone and then along his first, second, third rib. They are more difficult to find than they used to be, and she smiles softly, resting her head against the meat of his shoulder. She closes her eyes, and stills her hand, listening to the sleepy beating in his chest.

_Before, especially when they’d been apart for long periods, it seemed at times that the only weight on him was bone and muscle and metal. Fine and beautiful as the architecture of his skeleton was, Yennefer ached to see so much of it so easily. He never complained of hunger. Never spoke of the nights she knew he must have gone without even the comforts of an army hound. But she saw. She saw the hollows in his eyes. She knew the shape of every rib even beneath the muscle worn hard and thick from the base need to survive, and she mourned it. Mourned the way others let him walk around dying and did not care to consider that his every breath was precious._

_It scared her badly the first time she saw him after a long illness. Perfectly designed as it was, his body still needed something with which to drag itself back together, and he’d lost muscle in the trade for his life. She still remembers pressing her hand urgently into his breastbone as they fell into the sheets together, testing with her kisses and her fears the weight of the heart still beating defiantly inside him. That, at least, had not weakened, and she’d sighed her relief against his lips as it pumped hard against her palm._

She opens her eyes now, and his sternum presses gently against her fingers as he breathes. His breathing is deep and near silent.

_She will never take such a blessing for granted again, not after hearing the blood in his lungs and the wheezing of the dying in the back of his throat._

Her face crumples against the memory and she draws a sharp breath of her own, covering the old pitchfork scar as though she can shield him from the past. As if knowing she desires the reassurance, his heart nudges gently against her hand. He is so much larger than she is that the push is remarkably strong, even in sleep. She feels that singular beat across her entire hand, and she thinks, not for the first time, that were she to hold his heart in her hands she’d need both to envelop it safely.

She wonders what it looks like. Wonders what things about him it may whisper if she did hold it.

_Wonders what other scars mar its careful beauty._

_I can hear your heart beating, Geralt. I can hear it stop, as well._

She stares at her hand against his chest, strokes the place beneath which his heart is resting, traces its outline with a silent reverence, and basks in the safety they both have. The days of Geralt laying his life to chance for a scrap of gold are behind. His heart has beat faithfully and strong for a hundred years through a thousand battles, and now with those cares off his shoulders and a warm hearth and a good kitchen his heart is allowed to rest.

Yennefer thinks that Geralt will be the first witcher to know just how long that heart can last. How many natural years were added to its strength when he woke up among the bodies of children and found his way with golden eyes.

Though she knows it is foolish, she hopes he lives forever.

She is retired and she is in love. She is allowed to be foolish.


End file.
